Manifesto as method for a queer screen production practice

Abstract

ABSTRACT The authors reflect on creating a collaborative creative work that was developed both with, and as, a manifesto. Using queer theory as a framework, the authors track the process of developing and deploying a 14-step manifesto and outline their aims for queering screen production through creative practice. The project applies Baker’s (2011) call for a queer-ing of practice-led research, enacting a performative bricolage with a focus on queer screen production that is concerned with more than representation. The resulting 14-minute assemblage film outlines its thesis within an experimental, non-linear structure, comprising clips from the individual authors’ previously produced screen works, interplayed with new content, personal archive and textual elements. It combines the authors’ separate practices in filmmaking, screenwriting, mobile media and documentary in ways that deviate from mainstream categorisations, production hierarchies and workflows. Firstly, the manifesto is situated among others that outline strategies of disruption and resistance. Then, framed by the manifesto steps, the authors reflect on the film’s disruption of dominant narrative models in the context of queer theory’s critiques of heteronormative temporality. They then draw some conclusions around the possibilities of ‘manifesto as method’, and the implications for narrative disruption, queer screen production, and creative practice more broadly.